The present disclosure relates to an image forming apparatus and in particular relates to a technique for reducing wasteful consumption of sheets of paper due to printing errors during duplex printing.
In order to effectively reuse resources and reduce costs, it is common practice to load sheets of paper on which simplex printing has already been performed (referred to below as reused sheets) into a specific one of a plurality of sheet feed cassettes in an image forming apparatus, and to print on unprinted sides of the reused sheets. Unfortunately, the sheet feed cassette in which the reused sheets are stored may be mistakenly selected in duplex printing for which it is necessary to use sheets of paper on which printing has not been performed on either side thereof (referred to below as new sheets). In such a situation, printing is performed on printed sides of the reused sheets, resulting in a printing error.
In a known technique, for example, each sheet feed cassette is set in advance as either storing new sheets or reused sheets in order to solve the above-described problem. When an instruction for duplex printing is received, simplex printing is performed instead of duplex printing if the instruction indicates a sheet feed cassette that is set as storing reused sheets therein. Thus, printing is prevented from being mistakenly performed on the printed sides of reused sheets.